Easy Digital Downloads support

Documentation, articles, tips, and communication with our friendly support team

Hey there! Let's solve some problems together.

We've created helpful resources to better inform our users on what to expect, how things work, and how to solve unexpected problems. Before opening a support ticket, please review the following resources to see if any of them meet your immediate needs.

Depending on which selection you make, the support form will ask you for certain details about your inquiry, ultimately making the support experience more efficient. Please try to use the most accurate selection.

Pre-sale questionsI'd like to gather some information before committing.

Which selection covers the area you're having issues with?

Select whether you are experiencing problems with a specific extension/theme, or a certain component of Easy Digital Downloads itself. If you are unsure, select "I'm not sure".

A valid license key is required for extension/theme support.

Which extension/theme are you having issues with?

If you are experiencing problems with a specific extension or theme, please select it below. If your problem is with Easy Digital Downloads itself, select that from the menu above.

Select an option that describes your issue.

Let's make sure you're not experiencing one of the more common issues. We may already have a solution in our documentation. Please review the most common issues below.

Select an option that describes your Free Downloads issue.

Please review the most common Free Downloads issues below.

Adding custom fields to Free Downloads modal

At this time, you cannot add custom fields to the Free Downloads pop-up modal without pursuing custom development.

By going to Downloads -> Settings -> Extensions (tab) -> Free Downloads (section) in your WordPress dashboard, you can control the available fields, output, and behavior of your pop-up modal. Outside of these settings, all modifications to the pop-up modal must be done with your own custom code.

If you would like to pursue hiring someone for custom development, consider contacting one of our recommended 3rd party consultants.

"Download Unauthorized" error during update

This is happening because the customer's license keys are not properly activated on the URL that they have the plugin's installed on it. This can sometimes happen when a customer starts using the plugin on a temporary URL and then updates the URL to the final, live URL but does not change the license key to use the new URL.

In version 3.4 of Software Licensing we made a small change so that update notifications are shown (but not permitted to be installed) even for non-active / valid license keys.

Have your customer activate the license key on the proper URL and they'll be able to update the plugin.

Error: Missing secure Stripe token

This is one of the most common errors experienced when using the Stripe Payment Gateway extension. Because the error is quite general, it is necessary to troubleshoot in several ways to track down the culprit.

Before opening a support ticket, make sure you have read over the documentation describing reasons why this error occurs. Click the button below for a detailed description on how to proceed.

Additional resources

Editing the Stripe statement descriptor

The statement descriptor is the short description that shows up on a bank statement alongside the charge. When your customers purchase your products throught Stripe, they will most certainly see your statement descriptor. This should not be a source of confusion.

Depending on your settings, your product type, any custom code you may be using, and Stripe itself, the statement descriptor for a charge could be any one of multiple variants. For a better customer experience, it's best to take control of this descriptor to ensure clarity.

To learn more about the multiple ways you can control your statement descriptor, read the following documentation.

Enter just a few words related to your technical issue. This is not a full description.

As of May 2019, all rights to this plugin have been acquired by Plugins & Snippets. Please contact the new owner for support and updates.

Briefly explain your issue with the extension/theme?

Enter just a few words related to your technical issue. This is not a full description. Tip: mention the specific extension/theme.

Briefly explain your issue.

Enter just a few words related to your technical issue. This is not a full description. Tip: mention the specific extension/theme.

Social Discounts FAQ & known issues

Sharing via Twitter gives discount straight away

On November 20th 2015, Twitter changed the way the “Tweet” button works. As a result, the discount is now applied when the “Tweet” button is clicked (not when the tweet is published). This is unfortunately beyond our control and there's now no way to detect when a Tweet has been shared.

Additional resources

Email receipt/sale notifications not being sent

Email delivery failures are usually solved at the host level. Even if certain emails on your site are
sending properly while others aren't, chances are the culprit is your host's email delivery reliability, and not the plugin responsible for the email itself.

If delivery of your Easy Digital Downloads emails appear to be failing, follow the steps below for
initial troubleshooting:

Check to see if any WordPress emails are being delivered. To do this,
visit a login form on your site and click the "Forgot Password" link so that WordPress sends you a
password recovery email. If you do not receive this email, contact your
host to inform them of the email delivery issue.

If the above test properly delivers an email, complete an Easy Digital Downloads test purchase on your
site, ensure that
the purchase record has a status of Complete, and check to see if you receive a Purchase
Receipt email. If you do not see the email in your inbox, be sure to check your spam folder.

If your Easy Digital Downloads Purchase Receipt was not delivered, install a free email
logging tool such as WP Mail Logging,
complete another test purchase with Easy Digital Downloads, and then check the email logging to see if
the Purchase Receipt email is said to have been delivered properly, or if there is an error logged
related to the delivery of that email.

If the above tests result in email delivery failure without any logged errors, Easy Digital Downloads emails or otherwise, consider using third party email delivery, such as SendWP, as these services are likely to be more reliable than your host. For more information about reliable email delivery, please read this blog post.

Once you have gone through the above steps, please read our more detailed documentation for additional
troubleshooting tips and solutions for email delivery failure.

Additional resources

Why must users verify their accounts?

The account verification system is a critically important security feature which helps to ensure the security of your customer's accounts. In the same way that super simple passwords (like "12345") and basic user names (like "admin") are often not permitted, this feature cannot be turned off even by a site admin.

Whilst occasional users may be a little annoyed by having to verify their account, that slight annoyance pales in comparison to the emotions of a user who has their account compromised via a security hole on your website.

For more information on what triggers the user verification process, click the button below

Troubleshooting pagination issues

Pagination functionality can be quite sensitive, as it depends on query details, URL structure, and the like. While any number of things can interfere with pagination behavior, one of the most common issues is permalinks.

Go to Settings -> Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard and simple save the page. You don't have to change anything. Once you've re-saved that page, visit the page on your site where you are having pagination issues, clear your browser cache, and test once again. That will most likely resolve the issue.

Collecting Sales tax or VAT

It's no secret that taxes can be extremely confusing and tough to manage. While Easy Digital Downloads does its best to keep tax configuration simple, tax code around the world is complex and requires special attention not only from our software, but from store owners.

If you are just getting started with your store, or you need to implement taxes for the first time, please be sure to take a look at our Tax Settings documentation for a description of the settings.

For most, the above tax settings are more than enough to ensure compliance with local tax laws. However, it's not uncommon for additional extensions to be used in order to meet special requirements, or just enhance the functionality.

At the moment, all tax-related extensions for Easy Digital Downloads are built by 3rd party developers. To see a list of them, view the Taxes section on our 3rd party extensions page.

Note: If you have a specific question about one of the 3rd party tax extensions, please contact the creator of the extension. We cannot provide direct support for 3rd party extensions.

WordPress 5.0 compatibility

WordPress 5.0 introduces a new content editor that is based on "blocks," or sections of content that
serve various purposes. While the more familiar "Classic Editor" is still available for use until 2021,
Easy Digital Downloads will periodically introduce enhancements and tools that take advantge of the new
editor.

Please review the information below for details on where Easy Digital Downloads currently stands with the
new WordPress 5.0 editing experience.

Is Easy Digital Downloads compatible with WordPress 5.0?

Yes. The new content editor will not affect the display of content on your site, including content related to Easy Digital Downloads. That means if you update to WordPress 5.0 (never do so without saving a backup), your Easy Digital Downloads Pages will display just as they did before. The only change you will see is how your Pages are edited, as they will use the new editor.

Does the Add/Edit Download screen use the new editor?

No. As mentioned above, the Classic Editor is still fully supported in WordPress. For post types like the Download, the Classic Editor will remain the standard until we feel it is safe to commit to the new editor. Updating to WordPress 5.0 will not change the way you create new Downloads.

How do I use the [downloads] shortcode on a Page with the new editor?

You can continue to use the [downloads] shortcode in a WordPress Page just as you did before. For example, if you have added a "paragraph block" to your content, typing the shortcode into the paragraph will result in the same grid product display when you view the published page.

We have also introduced a new Easy Digital Downloads - Blocks plugin that allows you to add a product display grid through the new editor. The plugin is available in the official WordPress plugin directory.

Compatibility details and system requirements

In general, Easy Digital Downloads is compatible with any system that can properly run WordPress itself. You can see WordPress' requirements and recommendations here. Please note, however, that with several components involved in a typical eCommerce ecosystem, staying up-to-date across all systems is highly recommended.

Like WordPress, Easy Digital Downloads supports PHP 7.0+. Our extensions and themes aim to be compatible as well. However, with such a large catalogue, it is possible that some extensions/themes may throw warnings or errors. If you have already experienced an error on your live site, contact your host immediately to have your PHP version rolled back, then continue with our support form.

That said, we advise you to run updated versions of PHP, if possible. In doing so, your host may recommend that you perform a PHP compatibility test before updating PHP versions. When performing these tests, the compatibility tool may throw warnings for code that is no longer compatible with the latest versions of PHP. This usually happens because the aforementioned tools cannot read the context of code.

In all instances of using old or deprecated functions in our codebase, we try to wrap that code in a conditional check to make sure it only runs in the correct PHP environment. Compatibility checkers will not see that, and throw warnings anyway. You can simply look at the code referenced by the warning and see if it has a version compare conditional wrapped around it. If so, there is nothing to worry about.

If you are still unsure, feel free to continue with the support form. Be sure to provide us with the exact warnings/errors given by your compatibility checker tool.

Follow the instructions based on your scenario

I cannot access my site after updating or activating Easy Digital Downloads or one of its extensions.

Step 2: via FTP, navigate to {your_wordpress_site}/wp-content/plugins/. In this directory, look for the folder that correspondes with the plugin you activated or updated. The name will be similar.

Step 3: edit the name of this folder. This is force WordPress to deactivate the plugin. Changing a name from edd-plugin to edd-pluginx is perfectly fine. Take note that changing the plugin folder name back to its original name will not reactivate it. So you may (and should) change the name back immediately after Step 4.

Step 4: check to see if your site is up. If not, the plugin you targeted was not the culprit. Repeat the steps above until you find it, as long as you are sure that a plugin update or activation is what caused the site to crash.

Step 5: contact your host and ask for your recent PHP error log.

Step 6: if you confirmed with Step 4 that the culprit was an Easy Digital Downloads plugin, proceed with this support form and be sure to attach your PHP error log to your support ticket.

I have access to my WordPress dashboard, but a particular page on the front-end of my site has crashed.

Additional resources

Reporting security vulnerabilities

First, thank you for taking the time to report what you feel is a security vulnerability. We value feedback of all sorts from our community, especially from those who aim to make the ecosystem more stable for everyone involved.

Disclosing a security vulnerability is a sensitive process. We appreciate your cooperation and collaborative efforts as we work to address any issues.

Responsible disclosure

In order to ensure the safety of our users and provide a timely solution when necessary, we ask that you consider the following guidelines:

Describe the vulnerability in detail. Let us know the precise steps to reproduce the vulnerability and whether or not you have an observable example.

Avoid live examples of the vulnerability where possible. If it can be reproduced locally, or on a protected server, please do so there.

Allow us reasonable time to dissect and address the vulnerability before public disclosure.

Qualifying vulnerabilities

Typically, the following types of vulnerabilities should be reported:

Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF)

Remote Code Execution (RCE)

SQL Injection (SQLi)

If the type of vulnerability you are reporting is included above, or you believe that it should be, please proceed, keeping our responsible disclosure guidelines in mind. Thank you!

Assistance with custom code

Easy Digital Downloads is a complex ecosystem. With hundreds of released extensions providing a wide range of functionality, there's a chance the tools you need to run your business already exist.

However, it is not uncommon to need tweaks to existing extensions, custom functionality, or even entirely new extensions that no one has thought of yet. While we promote the idea of modifying the ecosystem to your needs, this is not something we have the ability to help you with. We cannot assist you with custom development in support.

We do have a GitHub repo that is a dedicated custom code library. We do not provide technical support for these code snippets, though we do attempt to make sure they remain usable over time.

Also, we have a dedicated blog specifically for development articles where we publish details about updates to the codebase, new API versions, and even beta releases that help you prepare your code for changes to come, if you are a developer.

Please subscribe to the developer blog if you haven't already done so.

If you still feel it is appropriate to open a support ticket for help with custom development, please keep in mind that we may not be able to provide assistance. We will certainly accept any suggestions about changes to our codebase, like filter requests or default style adjustments. But if you are trying to make a custom tweak to the functionality, it's best to hire a developer if you are not one yourself.

To hire a developer who is already familiar with the Easy Digital Downloads ecosystem, try contacting someone on our recommended list of 3rd party consultants.

Additional resources

Email already in use

This checkout error can occur in two situations. The first situation is by design. If a logged in customer attempts to complete a purchase using an email address that is attached to another customer's customer record, this error will occur and block the purchase.

While the first situation is by far the most common, the error can also occur as a result of a past bug in Easy Digital Downloads that is now fixed, but still troublesome in some older sites.

If you believe your site may be experiencing this error when it shouldn't, click the button below for details on how to resolve the issue.

Login to complete payment

There's a good chance that you are experiencing this checkout issue while testing your own guest purchase process. Occasionally, customers run into the issue when trying to complete the checkout process.

In either scenario, there is a reason why it happens. Please click the button below to see the details.

Cart is empty at checkout

The shopping cart system makes it possible for multiple users to enjoy their own virtual "basket" and checkout process on your site. For it to work the same for all visitors at all times, it has to be flexible.

One of the most common issues with online shopping carts is that if any step in the process loses its ability to change based on user actions, the entire system fails.

If the shopping cart on your site is always empty, despite adding products to the cart, some part of the system has failed for any number of reasons. Please click the button below to start troubleshooting based on the most common threats to the system.

Additional resources

Files not protected from unauthorized users

By default, Easy Digital Downloads will protect most product files from unauthorized users. Unless your product files are image or audio file types, they should be protected.

There are instances where certain server configurations or other factors affect our ability to properly protect your files. If your files are not properly protected, please familiarize yourself with how the system works and what things need to be considered in order to protect your files.

Additional resources

Fixing strange HTML in product titles

This happens because of an incorrect implementation of a WordPress function in your theme. In many cases, this problem will go unnoticed. But because Easy Digital Downloads dynamically enhances your product titles (as well as other product content) so that search engines know that they are indexing an actual product, implementation of that enhancement exposes the flaw in the theme.

How to request a refund

We firmly believe in and stand behind our products 100%, but we understand that it cannot work perfectly for everyone all of the time. We are more than happy to provide a complete refund within 30 days of your original purchase.

Before asking for a refund, please allow us to try and resolve any difficulties you are experiencing by clicking Technical Issues above and opening a support ticket describing the problem.

If you still feel that you must request a refund, please be sure to read our terms before proceeding.

Additional resources

Troubleshooting extension update issues/failures

Updating your purchased extensions should be a smooth process just like any other in-dashboard update through WordPress. However, there are things that can complicate the process. Let's take a look at a few potential issues and their solutions.

Errors while updating extension(s):

Three of the most common errors encountered while updating extensions are listed below:

Update package not available

Automatic update not available for this plugin

Download failed: Unauthorized

If you run into any of these errors, please go to Downloads -> Settings -> Licenses (tab) in your WordPress dashboard and double check the license key entered for the extension failing to update. To verify your license keys, you can log into your account to see the correct license keys listed below each of their respective extensions.

Additional resources

How to manage license key URLs

All Easy Digital Downloads license keys have the ability to track which sites they are being used on. Depending on which license level you purchased, your license may work on one site, up to five sites, or unlimited sites.

Typically, activating and deactivating your license on your site is enough to attach or detach a specific site URL. However, there are times when this needs to be done manually. At any time, you can manage this buy going to your account page, navigating to the Licenses tab, and clicking on Manage Sites for any license.

If you activate your license on domains with the following formats, we will attempt to prevent that activation from counting against your uses:

dev.domain.com

staging.domain.com

domain.dev

domain.local

Depending on server configuration, even using the above subdomains and top level domains will still result in license uses. If this occurs, simply contact us and request to have your development domain name whitelisted to avoid complications.

Additional resources

Transfer license keys

Generally, an extension purchase not only issues a license, but it also starts an annual subscription. Because subscriptions are tied to personal financial information, these types of purchases cannot be transferred between users.

If your developer purchased a license that you now maintain, or you are a developer looking to transfer your license to a client, it's best to have the license/subscription owner cancel the current subscription, which will leave the license key valid until its expiration date. The owner of the site can continue to use the license until it expires. At that point, he or she can then purchase a new license/subscription.

While this is not an actual transfer, it allows both parties to get the most use out of a purchased license. If you would like to go ahead and cancel a current subscription, you can do so on your account page.

Additional resources

Account Management

If you have ever purchased an extension or theme from Easy Digital Downloads, even if it was free, you should already have a user account on our site. The email address used to make your purchase can be used as your username. Your password was emailed to you.

At any time, you can log into your account to see your purchases, your license keys, your subscriptions, and more. You can also do things like update your payment method for subscriptions, cancel subscriptions, or even upgrade your purchases to something that better fits your needs.

Additional resources

Perhaps you're looking for the answer to a frequently asked question. Skim the list of options below for quick information. You may still ask your unique question if necessary.

Easy Digital Downloads pricing

Easy Digital Downloads is a free WordPress plugin. It can be downloaded by clicking "Download" in the site menu, or directly from the WordPress plugin directory. It is a full eCommerce solution with all of the functionality necessary to power an online digital store.

Extensions (sometimes referred to as "add-ons") are additional, optional WordPress plugins that extend the functionality of Easy Digital Downloads. While some extensions are free, most of our extensions require a paid subscription for licensing and support.

Additional resources

Free trials for extensions

We do not offer trial versions of our premium extensions, but we do have a 30 day money-back guarantee, allowing you to purchase any extension risk free.

You have up to 30 days after purchasing to determine if purchased extensions are right for you. If you determine they do not suit your needs, you may request a refund at any time within the first 30 days after purchase.

Additional resources

Selling physical products with Easy Digital Downloads

The first thing to note is that Easy Digital Downloads was built specifically for selling digital products. So most of the feature set and extension catalogue is focused on functionality needed to facilitate digital sales.

That said, selling physical products is not completely out of the question. For the most part, a physical product can be set up just the same as a digital product. The difference is that physical products usually need to be shipped to the customer. For that, the Simple Shipping extension is needed.

Additional resources

Theme compatibility with Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is designed to work with any WordPress theme. The eCommerce components that display on the front end of your site will either inherit styles from your chosen theme, or will be styled by default.

Some themes are built with Easy Digital Downloads in mind, meaning the themes have enhancements that take full advantage of features and capabilities of the ecosystem. Many of those themes are listed on our themes page, and are a great start. But you are not required to use one of them.

Choose a theme based on your design preferences first. Enhancements for Easy Digital Downloads are a bonus, but are not completely necessary.

Additional resources

WooCommerce compatibility

Easy Digital Downloads is not a tool for use with WooCommerce. Easy Digital Downloads itself is an eCommerce plugin that provides comparable functionality to WooCommerce. The two plugins do not integrate, though they will not clash either. Furthermore, Easy Digital Downloads extensions cannot be used with WooCommerce, and WooCommerce extensions cannot be used with Easy Digital Downloads.

Having both Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce installed on your website will not result in any technical issues, for the most part. They can work alongside each other. But they do not work with each other.

Additional resources

Choosing membership functionality

Easy Downloads itself is not a membership plugin, though it has some capabilities, with the help of extensions, that allow the ecosystem to perform much like a membership site.

The main thing to understand is that Easy Digital Downloads has its own shopping cart system as a dominant feature, while dedicated membership plugins expect customers to go through a completely separate checkout process in order to purchase a membership. Alongside each other, especially when membership status is supposed to determine access to products, this approach can be redundant.

If you need a membership site, but you also need eCommerce functionality, the goal should be to integrate the two so that functionality in one component lends to the other. The scenarios below may help you choose a path.

All Access allows your customers to download any product from your website using their All Access Pass. This is essentially a membership platform built to be accessed through the Easy Digital Downloads purchase process. See the video below for details.

Content Restriction allows you to restrict content on your site to customers who have made specific purchases. Whether you want to sell access to a private page, or just restrict a small section of content within a page, Content Restrction can do the job.

While this is not an actual membership platform, this is oftentimes the functionality users desire when they're shopping for a membership plugin. If you simply want to set up an Easy Digital Downloads product as a paywall to certain content, Content Restriction is perfect tool.

Recurring Payments allows you to sell products on your site with automatically recurring subscriptions. While this is not a true membership system, it is based on subscriptions, which is what many store owners are looking for.

Restrict Content Pro is full-featured membership plugin for WordPress. If your goal is to sell membership levels that meticulously determine site access, a full membership solution is the best tool for the job. Restrict Content Pro is our sister plugin, owned by the same entity as Easy Digial Downloads.

When using Restrict Content Pro, it is not necessary to have an eCommerce plugin like Easy Digital Downloads. Restrict Content Pro has its own checkout process and supports its own extensions.

Some users want to have a full membership solution, but also have the ability to distribute files to their customers. You may not need an entire eCommerce plugin like Easy Digital Downloads to do this. It's possible that all you need is a lightweight download manager alongside your membership functionality.

Conversely, you may need membership functionality and a complete eCommerce store as well. In this event, logical bridges between the two feature sets would be helpful.

Membership + lightweight download manager

There's a chance you don't need the complete functionality of Easy Digital Downloads alongside your membership functionality. Perhaps you just want to provide links downloadable files without the hassle of an additional checkout process.

Download Monitor is a free download manager plugin that gives you file distribution functionality like Easy Digital Downloads without all of the unnecessary eCommerce components.

Membership + Easy Digital Downloads

If you have decided that you do in fact need both Restrict Content Pro and Easy Digital Downloads, they will work alongside each other just fine, despite the fact that they do not integrate.

You can, however, give your members discounts on products created in Easy Digital Downloads by using the Restrict Content Pro Member Discounts extension. This extension allows you to create discounts for Easy Digital Downloads products based specifically on membership levels in Restrict Content Pro.

Membership + Frontend Submissions

If you are running a marketplace using Frontend Submissions and you would like to place limits on the number of product submissions your vendors can make, those vendors first need to become members. To do that, you'll need Restrict Content Pro. Once you're using Restrict Content Pro, Easy Digital Downloads, and Frontend Submissions, you can then add the free EDD FES Vendor Limits extension to place submission limits on your vendors.

Additional resources

Selling custom codes/ license keys with Software Licensing

While Software Licensing is a tool designed to make it easy for you to provide updates of your software to customers, it can be used in other ways once you understand its functionality.

One of the most common ways to use Software Licensing outside of its original purpose is to distribute preset, custom codes/license keys to those who purchase your products. This is definitely possible as Software Licensing is already set up to handle your list of custom codes.

Please read the following documentation for a better understanding of how to distribute preset codes/license keys with Software Licensing.

Additional resources

Selling images with Easy Digital Downloads

While it is possible to sell image files with Easy Digital Downloads, there are things that must be understood before you get started. Mainly, you need to understand that image files are not hidden from unauthorized viewers when uploaded as product files.

Uploading a .zip product file, for example, will result in the the file being protected from unauthorized downloaders. However, we do not automatically protect image and audio files as that would have adverse effects on your entire site.

Please read the following documentation for a better understanding of what it means to sell images with Easy Digital Downloads.

Additional resources

General Information

Easy Digital Downloads has a robust ecosystem that includes hundreds of official and 3rd party extensions (plugins). Admittedly, finding all of the information you need to move forward can be a bit overwhelming. Here are a few tips:

Browse our extensions catalogue and use its search feature to find extensions that meet your needs. Use specific keyword phrasing and/or brand names to find what you need.

All extension purchases are annual subscriptions that will automatically renew every year. At any time, you may cancel a subscription which will prevent it from renewing. However, the license key you were given along with your purchase will remain valid until its original expiration date. So you may cancel a subscription and continue to receive support and updates for the entire year period. See our terms & conditions for more information.

While our extension catalogue covers a wide range of functionality, there are some areas of functionality where we do not provide any tools. If you do not see an extension that you need in our catalogue, be sure to check the 3rd party extensions page.

You may also browse our documentation for a deeper understanding of Easy Digital Downloads and its extensions.